How to Build Local SEO in Philadelphia

If you’re a business owner trying to build local SEO in Philadelphia, this post is for you. With more than 50% of people in the United States owning or working for a small business according to the Small Business Administration, helping and supporting local businesses is a bit of a passion for me. I am writing a post on how to get your business found by your potential customers via local SEO Philadelphia (Search Engine Optimization).

We recommend building a local SEO strategy that targets both Google Maps and also Google search listings. Let’s take a look at how to build local SEO for small business by examining both of these:

Google Map Optimization (Google 3 Pack)

This is the top 3 map listings that Google shows for searches. It’s extremely beneficial for your local business SEO strategy to be ranked on these map listings for your industry keywords.

Google Search Listing Optimization

Getting ranked on Google provides many benefits for local businesses. Your local SEO for small business strategy should aim to be listed in the top 10 of Google search. A huge percentage of searches happen on page 1, so working to get listed here for your industry keywords is crucial.

Below are 10 tips for getting your business found on Google:

How to Build Local SEO in Philadelphia

Tip #1 – Get a Good Website

Most everyone uses the internet now to get information, even local information. Your potential customers are searching on their smartphones (nearly 60% of all searches now!), tablets, and desktops for products like yours. If you’re not there, your competitors will be. I recommend any legitimate business to get a professional website, it’s the central point of all your internet marketing efforts. Not only does a clean, professional, mobile-friendly website legitimize your business, it is information owned by you! I like to say a website is your digital location. It’s another channel to show off your products/services, collect leads, and collect important data via Google Analytics. My #1 tip for local SEO Philadelphia is to get a quality website (I highly recommend WordPress) for your business, it’s worth the investment.

Tip #2 – Organize Your Website’s Content

Don’t just get a website (we recommend WordPress) and expect amazing SEO results. You need a strategy for your business. When thinking about your website strategy, you should organize your information in a way that Google will love. Google’s goal is to rank the most relevant, user-friendly content at the top of search. Google’s mission statement reads:

“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

The key word here is useful. Make your information useful for your customers. A way to get maximum bang for your buck is to break down your information so that your content is thorough and relevant to the page topic. We recommend that your business create separate pages for each service that you provide. For example, if you’re a psychologist, create separate pages for services like: Group psychotherapy, individual psychotherapy, etc.

What else?

Creating a blog is a fantastic way to create new pages targeting new keywords.

So wait, what’s a keyword?

A keyword is a single word or phrase that someone types in in Google to find what they’re looking for. It’s CRITICAL to find what people are searching for in your niche. For example, an acupuncturist in Philadelphia should do research to find the top keywords in their local city. In this case “acupuncture Philadelphia” might be the hyper-local keyword that makes sense to optimize for.

Tip #3 – Optimize On-Page SEO

On Page SEO optimization is next.

It’s important to optimize your pages so that Google likes and lists them. You need your keyword in your copy, keyword in your metatag and descriptions, outbound links on your pages, internal links on your pages, alt text listed for your images, and much more we can write about in a future post.

Tip #4 – Get Quality NAP Citations

Now that we’ve gone over a basic local business SEO strategy, what’s next?

Now we have to target those Google Maps. In addition to the above 3 tips, one of the top strategies to rank for local SEO Philadelphia is to build NAP citations. What are NAP citations? NAP stands for Name Address Phone. Sometimes a “W” will be added after NAP, which stands for Website. These are standard listings of a company’s pertinent information for search engines to use and find. Think of this as the Yellow Pages of the web, but with thousands of available citation websites at your disposal. Your NAP are validations to Google and other search engine spiders that your business is legit. Some citations are more valuable than others, such as adding your NAP to Google and Facebook. One thing I must emphasize, your NAP should be EXACTLY the same everywhere. Inconsistencies can kill your local rankings because it confuses search engine spiders. My #4 tip for local SEO Philadelphia, get quality NAP citations and make sure they are all EXACTLY the same.

Tip #5 – Research Local Citation Sites in your Industry

Not only is it important to have your NAP listed on quality recognized citations, but also to have quality citations locally and in your niche. Google puts a lot of stock in citations and it’s important to get your NAP and website listed in the most important directories for your business. My #5 tip for local SEO Philadelphia is to find quality local and niche citations for your business.

Tip #6 – Get Quality Reviews from your Customers

In the above image, I did not include the 3 map listings, also known as “structured data”. In addition to the above tips, getting quality 4 and 5 star reviews is important to Google to rank your business. Do not spam these reviews, it’s important to get real reviews from your real customers. Not every review needs to be a 5 star as it looks more authentic with a few 3 and 4 stars mixed in. However, if your reviews are very negative (below a 3.5) I recommend creating a review strategy ASAP. There are some crazy statistics about reviews out there that show just how vital they are from a psychological perspective for your potential customers. Just a few:

93% of consumers say reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions. (source: thedrum.com)

82% of consumers say the content of a review has convinced them to make a purchase. (source: thedrum.com)

63% of consumers are willing to pay up to 15% more for the same product/service if assured they’d have a better experience. (source: thedrum.com)

My #6 tip for local SEO Philadelphia is to get real, quality reviews from your customers.

Tip #7 – Target Mixture of Local and Broad Keywords

In addition to having your business listed locally on top citation sites, you can also target highly searched local keywords that your customers are searching for on Google. One way I do this is through blogging (such as this post! However, I am targeting a non-local keyword with this post). Creating content on your website is a great way to target local keywords. Building a strategy around local keywords can be quite effective to get people to find your business’ website to learn about your business and how you can help them. My #7 tip for local SEO Philadelphia is to build a strategy to target local keywords your customers are using with intent for your products or services.

In addition to local keywords, you can optimize for broad keywords that Google happens to list local businesses for. So you may be asking, “How do I know if a broad keyword lists local businesses?” Easy. Google the keyword and if local results (maps or local businesses) show up in the search results, it’s a winner! I recommend optimizing your site for these keywords.

Tip #8 – Boost Your Keywords with Quality Back-links

My #8 tip for local SEO Philadelphia is to get quality back-links. After you have a created content targeting keywords, it’s important to bring authority to your pages. A big factor in this is back-links. Back-links are links that other websites use to reference your pages. While using social media to link to your content is a great practice (Google sees receiving social media links as “social signals”) they won’t necessarily give you the ‘juice’ that other quality links do. That is because social media links are “no-follow” links. However, more shares and interactions to your posts, the more Google can assess that your content is popular. It’s important to have a nice mixture of “no-follow” links as well as “do-follow” links.

An example of a “do-follow” link is the following: A great acupuncturist can help relieve you relieve shoulder pain. I am telling Google that this URL is valuable to me by linking (contextually – meaning, links typically found in the body of text on a website that naturally fit in the ideas being discussed) to it and giving it the “do-follow” link juice. While social media are “no-follow” links, they can be incredibly beneficial to get the word out about your post which can be linked by other websites. Also, search engine results can list your blog posting on google in the actual search results.

Tip #9 – Monitor Customer Comments

The ninth tip for building local SEO in Philadelphia is to find and respond to negative comments. Some comments are obvious, such as on Google. But there are millions of pages on Google with all types of content where comments can evade your grasps. It is very important for your business to respond to negative comments because it shows other potential customers and customers that you care about correcting or fixing the issue. A business that has many negative comments with no response from the business is a major red flag for potential customers. Being timely in response is also important. If 1 month goes by with no response, many people will see this. Just respond timely and nicely!

Tip #10 – Take Advantage of Other Marketing Channels

Is there anything else?

Yes! SEO is a long-term strategy. Slowly but surely, the goal is to rank for new keywords. It’s important to continue creating new content (like this blog post) to try to target new keywords and attract links (linkable assets). It’s also important to continue getting quality links pointed back to your website. You can even create a strategy pointing links internally to your website. Believe it or not, internal linking can help your ranking! Finally, take advantage of your other channels to help your SEO. Creating content on social media, email campaigns, even advertising (as long as you’re sending people back to your website) can help your local SEO Philadelphia.

GREETINGS!

Thank you for finding your way to The Bart Organization! My name is Anthony Bart, I’m a Digital Marketing Consultant looking to help businesses of all sizes either start a digital marketing strategy or improve their current digital marketing efforts. I know businesses have many choices available to them for marketing, whether it’s an agency or an in-house marketing team. Having worked on in-house marketing teams over the last 10 years, I know that agencies are very costly and often times don’t take initiative to help your organization grow beyond what is asked of them. I’ve decided to create a consulting company that truly establishes partnership with my clients. As a Christian, honesty, integrity, and loyalty are of the utmost importance in my business and in my life.

I thank you again for visiting The Bart Organization. Please fill out the contact form below, I’d love to learn about your business, your goals, and how we can work together to accomplish them.

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1. Honesty: Trust is of the utmost importance in building relationships.
2. Transparency: We are up-front with our methods and ideas.
3. Ethics: We do what is right to everyone we encounter when no one is watching.
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WHY WE’RE DIFFERENT

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5. We build relationships. As a partner to your business, we are here to help and guide you.